1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to seafood processing and more particularly to an improved method and apparatus for processing crustacea such as those known as crayfish or crawfish. Even more particularly, the present invention relates to an improved crawfish peeling apparatus that simultaneously conveys crawfish to a peeling mechanism and elongates the tail portion of the crawfish, flattening and straightening the tail before it is grabbed by a peeling mechanism that removes the edible tailmeat.
2. General Background of the Invention
The crawfish industry (primarily located in Louisiana and Texas) has only existed for a few decades. Before recent times, crawfish were eaten as they were poached out of the wild, particularly in the Atchafalaya Basin, west of Baton Rouge, La. In the 1950's, families began turning this tradition pastime into a business, gathering hundreds of pounds of crawfish at a time and selling them. In time, the popularity of dishes featuring crawfish led to a demand for a tailmeat product which would save buyers, particularly restaurant owners, the expense of having to labor over the boiling and peeling of the entire crawfish. Several businesses met this demand, and now many small businesses boil, peel and package crawfish tailmeat that is available in the consumer market either frozen or fresh. Some of these operations have developed into international businesses grossing millions of dollars per year.
In the past view years, this industry has experienced a great deal of adjustment as Chinese producers have entered the crawfish markets. These Chinese businesses are able to sell a high-quality product at greatly reduced prices. While many observers view this change as a major economic catastrophe, there are a few reasons that this competition could be positive in the long term. Firstly, this cheaper product has entered markets that were formerly geographically prohibitively expensive. Major restaurants have added crawfish dishes to their menus nationwide. The total volume of crawfish sales worldwide is many times greater than it was prior to the Chinese entering the market. It follows, then, that should Louisiana and Texas crawfish producers find a way to become competitive in this new larger market, they stand to significantly increase sales.
Thus, there presently exists a need for a mechanism that can effectively process large volumes of crawfish to remove the edible tailmeat from the carapace.
Several patents have issued for crawfish peeling devices. Some of those are listed below:
U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,121,322, 4,196,495, 4,236,877, 4,385,422, 4,524,490, 4,817,243, 4,912,810, 4,928,352, and 5,055,085.